1/48 Hobbycraft Avia 199 

by Massimo Ginesi

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This is my 1/48 Hobbycraft Avia 199 in Israeli markings that I just finished.  

 

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I decided to use the Aires resin cockpit because the Hobbycraft interior is very, very poor.  The Aires cockpit set is very beautiful and interesting, with a low price for the quality, but  it is hard to set the resin bay it in the aircraft.

 

 The Hobbycraft kit is very basic and not really good fitting and I didn't like it a lot.  I had much to fill with putty, a lot to sand, and many times I had to rescribe the panel lines!  Probably the really attractive appeal of these kits is the good price with a reasonable quality!

 The decals from the kit, are sticky and hard to conform to the model. The striped decal on the tail drove me crazy! I minimized the problems with a little touch of Tamiya acrylic white and red, but perhaps it'd be better to spray the stripes directly on the model. 

I gave to the model a coat with an old Humbrol enamel HU1 (this is an old classification) that seems to be the best match with my references. Then I hilighted every detail with Tamiya smoke heavily thinned and, after this, I give a light coat of Humbrol HU1 very, very thinned. This is the first time I used Tamiya smoke and its not bad at all!  After a coat of Tamiya acrylic gloss clear, is was time for decals and after this, for weathering, with raw humber oil color diluted with mineral spirits.

 

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I added some minor details with stretched sprue and plastic rod (the barrels of the wing guns is two pieces of plastic rod with a little hole in each muzzle, the pitot tube are two rods fit one in the other, the safe cable of canopy is stretched sprue, etc)  and then I gave a final coat of Humbrol satin varnish and some little touch with a chrome (silver) pencil.  

Massimo

Photos and text © by Massimo Ginesi